farmers' herds putting out annually. Farms still produced their own butter in quantity, but left cheese production and its enormous fluid milk requirements to the processing plant. It was the beginning of a shift from the diverse animal farming which had characterized the district earlier in the century to almost exclusively dairy farming, as it is today. Barns grew bigger to accommodate the larger cattle herds and more land was given over to pasture and feed crops. 1850–1923: Conversion to dairy farming and tourism With the coming of the railroad, local entrepreneur Amasa Coleman lobbied for the construction of the station that would take its name from him and give it to the area. He and Oliver Barrett convinced what was by then the New York Central that a separate stop less than two miles (3 km) north of its Sharon station would help it better serve both the vacationers headed for that town across the state line and the farmers. The station spurred the development of a small commercial center around it, almost vanished today. Indian Lake Road was rerouted to the east side of the line (the original roadbed is still visible near the current overpass) and a rock cut created through the Wheeler-Bassett Farm. In the Great Blizzard of 1888 a five-locomotive plowing team was utterly wrecked when it crashed into snow that had accumulated in the cut. Five members of the train crew were killed. The railroad's presence led to an old farmhouse, today known as Mutton Hill, at the southeast corner of the district, being renovated for use as country house. It was the only one in the district until 1903 when Thomas Hidden, a recently retired New York City industrialist, bought portions of four of the old farms on Sheffield Hill Road to create his Hiddenhurst estate. He may have chosen the Coleman Station area over the more popular Sharon area to the south since he was interested in raising horses on the property. He built a large stable and indoor training course, neither extant. The ornate neo-Georgian main house is considered to be the most architecturally distinctive property in the district. Two years after Hidden's death in 1918, his estate was purchased by the Sheffield Milk Company, which combined his property with others it had acquired nearby and established a large corporate farm. It demolished Hidden's stable and training facility and erected a